On the night of February 25, 1992 Armenian and Soviet troops attacked the Azeri
town of Khocali in the Khojali Rayon of Azerbaijan. The inhabitants of the town
attempted to escape from the extermination and flee from the invasion. The
invaders cut all escape routes for civilians in the city and the roads leading
to nearby forestry and fields[1].

On this black and bloodiest date, the Azerbaijani-Armenian war in Daghlig
Karabagh ended with a brutal massacre performed by ruthless Armenians. Total of
613 people were killed, 1,000 peaceful people of different ages became invalid,
106 women, 63 children, and 70 old men were killed, eight families were
completely annihilated, 130 children lost one parent, while 25 lost both of
them, 1275 peace residents were taken hostages and the fate of 150 of them is
still unknown[2].

The fallen of Khocali may not number in the thousands, but the victims were as
innocent as newborn babies, infants, children, girls and woman, elderly people
with no arms or even not knowing in any way to use any kind of a weapon.

The documents and the information before and aftermath of this inhuman incident
were enough to characterize it as “Genocide”[3].

In Khojali the world must know this crime is directed not only against the
Azerbaijan nation, but also the whole civilized world and mankind.

The facts prove that the intentional extermination of the Azerbaijanis living in
the Khojali town was directed at their mass extermination only because of their
nationality. Khojali was chosen on purpose as a start point for further
hostility, invasion and the ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani lands.

Over a million innocent Azerbaijani immigrants still live even after long years
over the Khojali massacre, under harsh conditions where they could barely shed
in luggage wagons, barns, tent stations, houses-in-built and other unhealthy
places not fit to live humanly because of the ruthless Armenian assault on
February 25-26, 1992 to the town of Khojali[4].

The crime should not remain without punishment. Armenian military-political
aggression must be condemned by the world community. International organizations
and parliaments of the world states must give a political-legal appraisal of the
Khojali genocide, which is a bloody military crime and an offense against the
right to live of civilian human beings, committed by the Armenian Republic in
the Azerbaijan territories.

The Core of the Issue

Zori Balayan[5]
is one of the founding fathers of the greater Armenia ideology. In 1996 he wrote
a book about the “Revival of the Armenian Soul” and gave a blunt description of
the Khocali massacre. Recounting how Armenian soldiers nailed an Azeri child to
a window and watched him die.

It was indicated by the Armenian authorities that the Azerbaijani population
living in Khocali were being destroyed just for being Turks. The speech, which
revealed the hatred sentiments of the ones, who committed genocide at Khocali,
was delivered by Serzh Sargsyan[6],
at the time when he was the Prime Minister of Armenia and a candidate for the
presidency.

When English journalist Thomas de Vaal[7]
asked the reason of the Khocali genocide to Serzh Sargsyan, the Minister of
Defense of Armenia of the related period, Sargsyan replied as following; “We do
not wish to speak loud on this issue. Until Khocali, Azerbaijan never thought we
would assault civilians, however, at Khocali we broke that cliché. Also, we
should admit the fact that our attack units in Khocali were composed of the
Armenians, who ran away from Baku and Sumgait.”

While police Chief Valeri Babayan[8]
was saying: “The attack units in Khocali were composed of the Armenians, who ran
away from Sumgait and other regions”, actually, he confirmed what Sargsyan had
told.

The Armenians who left Azerbaijan felt hatred and were full of revenge
sentiments towards Turkish origin Azerbaijanis and they found the chance to
express these sentiments at Khocali
[9].
The statement of Sargsyan is, in fact, the expression of a special “Revenge
Brigade” that was formed with the Armenians, who had emigrated from Azerbaijan
against the people of Khocali by the Armenians.

The Principal Actors of the Khojali Genocide

The “Principal Actors” of the Khocali Genocide are the Levon Ter-Petrosyan[10]
and Serzh Sargsyan with no doubt.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan was elected as the first President of Armenia on 16th of
October 1991. He was graduated from the Oriental Studies Department of Yerevan
State University in 1968. He completed his postgraduate studies at the Leningrad
oriental Studies Institute. Ter-Petrosyan became well known in Armenian politics
with his leadership of Karabakh Committee, which aimed to put Dagligh Karabakh
(Nagorno-Karabakh) under the jurisdiction of Armenia. He was arrested together
with other members of the Committee on 10th of December 1988.

In 1989, he was elected member of the Board of the Armenian National Movement[11]
(ANM) and then he became the Chairman of the Board.

When Ter-Petrosyan became the President of the Republic of Armenia, the Dagligh
Karabakh conflict was the major issue for Armenian foreign policy.

In the year 1988 an Azerbaijani population as much as 250,000 was expelled from
Armenia and Armenia became a mono-ethnical state[12].
The Daghlig Karabakh events, which began in 1988 along with continuous efforts
to implement the Armenian desire of building a state from sea to sea, led to the
destruction of Azerbaijanis towns and villages, the murder of thousands of
innocent Azerbaijani people, as well as the exile of hundreds of thousands of
Azerbaijanis from their native lands[13]
in the year 1992.

Ter-Petrosyan appointed Serzh Sargsyan as a Defense Minister in August 1993.
Serzh Sargsyan was a member of parliament in Armenia and Karabakh at the time.

Serzh Sargsyan[14]
was born on June 30, 1954 in Khankendi, Daghlig Karabakh (then the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast within Soviet Azerbaijan). He was admitted to
Yerevan State University in 1971, served in the Soviet Armed Forces during
1971-72, and graduated from the Philological Department of Yerevan State
University in 1979.

Sargsyan’s career began in 1975 at the Electrical Devices Factory in Yerevan,
where he worked as a metal turner until 1979 when he became head of the
Khankendi City Communist Party Youth Association Committee. Then served as
second secretary, first secretary, the Khankendi City Committee Propaganda
Division Head, the Daghlig-Karabakh Regional Committee Communist Organizations’
Unit Instructor, and finally as the assistant to Genrikh Poghosyan, the First
Secretary of the Daghlig-Karabakh Regional Committee.

As tensions rose over Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenians and Azerbaijanis,
Sargsyan became chairman of the Daghlig-Karabakh Republic Self-Defense Forces
Committee and was subsequently elected to the Supreme Council of Armenia in
1990. He organized several battles in the Daghlig-Karabakh War and is considered
to be one of the founders of Daghlig-Karabakh’s and Armenia's armed forces.

He became the Armenian defense minister in 1993, head of Armenian state security
department in 1995 and minister of national security in 1996. In 1999, he became
Robert Kocharyan’s “Chief of Staff”, then secretary of the national security
council, defense minister, and prime minister in 2007. He won the February 2008
presidential election with the backing of the conservative Republican Party of
Armenia, a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008.

Serzh Sargsyan was the chair of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Self-Defense Forces
Committee in 1992. During his era Armenian military forces committed genocides
in the town of Khojali with a population of seven thousand people on February
26, 1992[15].

The team members of the Principal Actors

Armenian troops strengthened by 366th Mechanized Infantry Regiment of
the Russian Army attacked the town Khojali on the night of February 25, 1992 and
occupied the defenseless town in 36 hours committing one of the most heinous,
ruthless and bloody crime in the human history[16].

The 2nd battalion of the 366th regiment under the command
of Major Oganyan Seyran Mushegovich, now the Defence Minister of the illegal
regime in Daghlig Karabakh, the 3rd battalion under the command of
Yevgeniy Nabokhin, the staff chief of the 1st Battalion Chitchyan
Valeriy and more than 50 officers and ensigns, serving in the regiment took part
in the attack[17].

The officially recorded names[18]
and ranks of the privates and officers of the 366th Regiment are as
follows.

Among the aggressors were the Ex-Police Chief of town of Khankendi Armo
Abramyan, Ex-Police Chief of town of Askeran Mavrik Gukasyan, Ex-Vice Police
Chief of town of Askeran Shagen Barsegyan and Ex Principal of town of Henkhendi
Prison Serjik Kocharyan.

Conclusion

The crime should not remain without punishment. Armenian military-political
aggression must be condemned by the world community. All of the above mentioned
people and also those who gave directions to commit genocide must be held
responsible and taken into court for a trial.